Canada Wants To Implement A Link Tax
from the link-taxes-keep-spreading dept
One chapter of my Walled Culture book (free download available in various formats) looks at how the bad ideas embodied in the EU’s appalling Copyright Directive – the worst copyright law so far – are being taken up elsewhere. One I didn’t include, because its story is still unfolding, is Canada’s Bill C-18: “An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada”. Here’s the key idea, which will be familiar enough to readers of this blog: READ MORE
Twitter’s Former Head Of Trust & Safety Explains Why, For All His Billions, Elon Musk Can’t Magically Decide How Twitter Will Work
from the reality-sets-in dept
There are a variety of myths about how the world works that get people really screwed up when they make big bets on trying to “fix” things. I think Elon Musk has fallen prey to a few of them in how he’s trying to run Twitter. First, he falsely believes (as was the widespread myth among many, especially in right wing circles) that Twitter’s content moderation/trust & safety efforts were driven mainly by extreme “woke” employees who were seeking to silence opinions and viewpoints they disagreed with. As we’ve discussed repeatedly, that’s never been the case. Twitter had a far more free speech-supporting position than any other site, and the trust & safety decisions were made based on what they believed was actually best for the site, which means trying to minimize hate and harassment as that drives both users and advertisers away.
A second big myth that Musk seems to have bought into is the idea that this is all a technical, rather than human, problem. And that he can just “hardcore” nerd harder his way through these challenges. But, that’s not true either. Yes, Twitter actually had some pretty sophisticated technology, which was mainly around scaling a massive many-to-many messaging system. But the real “product” innovation at Twitter was the human element, and the community that built up around it. . . READ MORE
Federal Court Blocks Florida’s ‘Stop WOKE’ Act, Calls It ‘Positively Dystopian’
from the performative-evil,-from-a-performative-governor dept
Florida governor Ron DeSantis appears to believe he’s the successor to Donald Trump’s short-lived throne. While Trump was president, DeSantis did everything he could to appeal the same voter base. Trump rather listlessly announced he’ll run again in 2024, but it’s a fair bet DeSantis will try to become Trump 2.0 if it appears the Republican base isn’t ready to ride Trump’s presidential Vomit Comet for another four years.
DeSantis has pushed through laws that violate the First Amendment in hopes of bypassing Section 230 immunity, targeting social media companies over perceived “anti-conservative” bias. He’s also decided the First Amendment shouldn’t apply to certain people and companies if they choose to espouse views that don’t align with his. That’s the gist of the Stop W.O.K.E. Act (since rechristened the “Individual Freedom Act” in an attempt to divorce itself from the rights-crushing it’s intended to inflict), which forbids speech if the speech is anything other than an echoing of the DeSantis party line.
This law has already been blocked twice by a federal court. . . READ MORE
35 Years And $400 Million Later, The FCC Says It Finally Has Accurate Broadband Maps. Maybe.
from the can't-fix-a-problem-you-can't-measure dept
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We’ve noted for decades how, despite all the political lip service paid toward “bridging the digital divide,” the U.S. doesn’t actually have any idea where broadband is or isn’t available. The FCC’s past broadband maps, which cost $350 million to develop, have long been accused of all but hallucinating competitors, making up available speeds, and excluding a key metric of competitiveness: price.
You only need to spend a few minutes plugging your address into the FCC’s old map to notice how the agency comically overstates broadband competition and available speeds. After being mandated by Congress in 2020 by the Broadband DATA Act, the FCC struck a new, $44 million contract with a company named Costquest to develop a new map, just unveiled for the first time.
According to the FCC, this new map is the first step in a long process to accurately identify where broadband is (or isn’t), kind of important for people making broad policy decisions:
“Our pre-production draft maps are a first step in a long-term effort to continuously improve our data as consumers, providers and others share information with us,” FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “By painting a more accurate picture of where broadband is and is not, local, state, and federal partners can better work together to ensure no one is left on the wrong side of the digital divide.”
A first glimpse at the map shows many of the same problems we saw with the last map. It still doesn’t bother to mention price, a key metric in determining broadband accessibility. And it still claims service availability in a lot of locations that don’t have service. For example, I live a few miles from the center of Seattle under a Comcast monopoly, and the map still claims I can get Lumen (Centurylink) fiber:
Still, there’s several useful improvements this time around. For one, the FCC promises it will do a better job of holding ISPs accountable for false coverage claims. Two, the agency says it will stop using flawed methodology that declared an entire census block “served” with broadband if ISPs claimed that just one home in that census block could receive broadband.
That it took thirty years to get here tells you just how influential broadband industry lobbying has been. Telecom monopolies have spent decades lobbying against better maps and a more modern definition of broadband (currently 25 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up), knowing full well that a more accurate picture of competitiveness might give somebody in the federal government the crazy idea to try and fix it.
I’ve spent most of 2022 talking to states and city leaders trying to deliver better broadband, and most of them are very concerned about the challenge process the FCC is implementing to let third parties challenge industry claims. . . READ MORE
Of particular concern is that many under-resourced, under-staffed, under-funded small ISPs, states, and municipalities won’t be able to afford to challenge industry claims, causing them to lose out on a once in a lifetime broadband funding opportunity made possible via the $50 billion in broadband subsidies created by COVID relief and infrastructure legislation:
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